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Author Biography

Jeff Carlson gave up an opportunity to intern at a design firm during college because he suspected that they really just wanted someone tall to play on their volleyball team, and instead worked in the Whitworth publications office where he got to actually, you know, design stuff. In the intervening years, he's been a designer and writer, authoring best-selling books on the Macintosh, Web design, video editing, and Palm organizers. He's currently a columnist for the Seattle Times, contributing editor to the respected electronic newsletter TidBITS, and consumes almost too much coffee. Almost.

Adobe’s release of Lightroom CC, a new Lightroom application that exists alongside the existing version, has enthusiasts and everyday photographers wondering if it’s time to change photo tools. Jeff Carlson looks at Lightroom CC and explains why it’s a compelling step up from Apple’s Photos.

iOS 11’s Long Exposure effect for Live Photos captured using an iPhone or iPad is impressive. Jeff Carlson compares what you would have to do to get the same shot with the iPhone and a traditional camera.

Luminar is a new app from Macphun that combines technologies the company developed in stand-alone apps into one photo editing environment. Is it good enough to stand up to Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom, or Apple’s Photos?

Is your MacBook Pro with Touch Bar getting less battery life per charge than you think it should? The culprit could be applications that are forcing it to use the high-performance graphics processor. Here’s how to tell which GPU is in use and which applications to close to switch to the integrated processor.

Lightroom for iOS 2.4 adds two significant features to the mobile photo editing app for iPad and iPhone: support for raw format images and local selections for adjusting specific areas of a photo. This means photographers who shoot in raw can import, edit, and sync their photos between mobile and desktop Lightroom libraries without annoying workarounds.

The operating system for the Apple Watch, watchOS 2, adds important improvements such as native apps and custom complications. Jeff Carlson reveals some of the lesser-known features and details that enhance the Apple Watch experience.

We want photos on the Mac and on iOS devices to seamlessly find their ways into our photo libraries, but until recently that was essentially impossible. Apple’s Photos for OS X and Adobe’s Lightroom CC include cloud-based options for synchronizing photos among devices, but take different paths to reach that goal.

If you want to view photos that are saved to iCloud’s My Photo Stream feature on your Mac, you need to do it in iPhoto or Aperture — two Apple applications that are scheduled to be retired. MyPhotostream is a new alternative that intentionally does just one thing: displays your My Photo Stream photos in a simple environment.

If you accidentally recorded a video in Slo-Mo mode on an iPhone or iPad Air 2, you can’t easily save a real-time version. Jeff Carlson shares a couple of workarounds using either the free Slow Fast Slow app or iMovie for iOS.

Wondering why configurations for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus start at a pathetic 16 GB instead of jumping to the more logical 32 GB? The answer is most certainly profit for Apple, and that higher profit comes from a bit of clever psychological marketing.

Apple is retiring Aperture, its professional photo software, in favor of the new Photos application for OS X. Jeff Carlson examines why the transition isn’t like most software and what Photos will need to do (and may fail at) in the future.

We have three quick ExtraBITS for you today, starting with the return to the App Store of the essential password utility PassScreen, Apple finally giving a nod to the wearable market, and “Take Control of Your Passwords” author Joe Kissell talking about password security on Oprah.

OmniOutliner users have waited a long time — since before Apple switched to powering Macs with Intel processors — for a major-version update of the versatile outlining application. Jeff Carlson looks at what’s new in OmniOutliner 4.

Not only did Apple add a few new features to the built-in Camera app under iOS 7, the company revamped how the Photos app works. Jeff Carlson explains what’s new and different with both photo apps for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.